it is terrible but an inevitable consequence of immoral wars being waged for immoral purposes by political-military structures which encourage their footsoldiers and stormtroopers to embrace an amoral and/or nihilistic outlook because they believe it is the only way for a soldier to function effectively.

i guess the oppurtunity for serious discussion has passed with it, but my point was that terrorism isn't short-hand for violence that in some ways includes muslims, whether you are considering the american media, american politics/politicians or the 'western world' in general.

and wasnt trying to up the ante/aggro deliberately between the US and Islam (by doing such an extreme act whils wearing his US uniform) for whatever reason.

Although it is mass murder, it is mass murder by someone who is under (or should be under) VERY VERY Strict discipline and with a strict heirarchical chain of command. I notice he is a staff seargent, so he wouldn't have been going out on patrols would he? Why wasn't his mental instability noticed?

I agree that it miight be that the US is not totally responsible for his actions, BUT nor are they totally irresponsible for it, after all, they armed him and put him in another country where he is a stranger and allowed an atmosphere to envelope him that made him go like this.

so there should not be an attempt to merely wash hands of all responsibility, they will have to do something to appease the population, even if it is only to review all those with mental instability and remove their access to firearms, and to court marshall those clowns who burnt the qoran, and also punish those dolts posing with an SS influenced flag. (those who did the book buening have seriously jeopardised the US military aims (or the stated aims) in afghanistan, they have also endangered more of their fellow soldiers lives.

only in his example it is often the comparison between eg an Israeli soldier gunning down praying muslims in a mosque (Baruch Goldstein) as a terrible tragedy whereas a suicide attack that blows up a bus or a pizza restaurant is a despicable act of terrorism by organisations that want to wipe Israel of the map and IDF reprisals from helicopter gunships are necessary defensive deployments attacking militants.

The reality is far more complicated of course (particularly in the case of Baruch Goldstein who was a member of an extreme right-wing nationalist group that were designated terrorists by the Knesset) but the media and many spokespeople seek to maintain the narrative that the enemy are vicious dogs and that if someone on our side did something despicable it's because something went tragically wrong because, y'know, we're the good guys.